2 Kennedys Take the Stand in Florida To Tell of Family Ties and That Night

By DAVID MARGOLICK,

Published: December 7, 1991

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Dec. 6—
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose wish for a nightcap last Easter weekend helped set the William K. Smith rape case into motion, came here today to testify in his nephew's trial.

But what he said in his long-awaited appearance in Judge Mary E. Lupo's courtroom was longer on wistfulness over the family's dead than on information relevant to the case. Moreover, what information he produced was less helpful to the prosecution, which had called him as its own witness, than to the defense.

After the Senator finished his 40 minutes of testimony, his youngest son, Patrick, was called to the stand and supplied more significant testimony. He offered a substantially different chronology of events than Mr. Smith's accuser, setting the stage for Mr. Smith's own testimony when the defense begins presenting its case in the next few days. A Different Account

The younger Mr. Kennedy, a state representative in Rhode Island, told the court that early on the morning of March 30, he encountered Mr. Smith saying goodbye to his accuser shortly before she drove away from the Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach. Then, as the two cousins walked toward the house together, Patrick Kennedy said, Mr. Smith described what he called the bizarre experiences he had just had with the woman.

"He told me he was quite exasperated because the woman was saying all sorts of strange things," the younger Mr. Kennedy recalled. He said these included referring to him by the wrong name, "Michael," demanding to see his driver's license, yelling at him, and insisting she had been to the Kennedy compound before. In court documents, Patrick Kennedy had described the woman as "a 'Fatal Attraction' type."

Patrick Kennedy then related how, only about two minutes after the woman had ostensibly driven away, she and Mr. Smith were "startled" to find the woman inside the Kennedy house. He said Mr. Smith asked her if she wanted to talk, then went "amicably" with her into another room and closed the door. When Mr. Smith rejoined him 45 minutes later, Mr. Kennedy said, he reiterated how "really strange" the woman was, noting that for some reason she had summoned her friends to the house and had threatened to call the police.

Later that morning, Mr. Kennedy continued, Mr. Smith told him he had had sexual relations with the woman. "I had asked him whether he used protection, because he talks about how that's important and he said, 'No, but thank God I pulled out.' " But Mr. Kennedy said that by Sunday evening, Mr. Smith, who had returned to Washington, had grown worried. "It sounds like a set-up," Mr. Kennedy recalled his cousin saying over the phone.

Earlier in the day the prosecutor, Moira K. Lasch, questioned the Senator extensively on his visit to Au Bar, a Palm Beach club, in the early morning hours of March 30. Accompanying Mr. Kennedy to the nightspot were Patrick and Mr. Smith, and it was there that Mr. Smith met the woman who is now accusing him of rape.

The Senator, dressed in a dark blue suit, blue shirt and striped tie, said he had decided to go to the bar around midnight, in part to combat the melancholy and insomnia of a day spent reminiscing about Stephen E. Smith, his late brother-in-law and Mr. Smith's father, who died in August 1990.

"The conversation was very emotional, very difficult, and brought back a lot of very special memories to me," said Senator Kennedy, who called Stephen Smith "a brother to me and other members of the family." He continued: "I found that at the end of that conversation, I was not able to think about sleeping. It was a very draining conversation, a whole range of memories came as an overwhelming wave in terms of emotion, and I thought 'I can't possibly sleep.' "

Looking for some companionship, he said, he rounded up Patrick and Mr. Smith, whom he had just seen heading for the bedroom they were sharing.

Some here speculate that Mrs. Lasch called Senator Kennedy to visit the uncle's sins upon the nephew. Instead, Mr. Smith was bathed in the family's almost-magic aura. Backing Up Nephew

Just what happened at the chic night spot, including what Senator Kennedy drank, has been the subject of endless speculation, gossip-mongering, ridicule and hairsplitting. But far more important legally is what those present later at the estate, the Senator included, actually saw and heard early on March 30. And what he told Mrs. Lasch about this only fortified his nephew's case.

Mr. Smith's accuser has testified that when he attacked her on the lawn in front of the compound, she screamed repeatedly. Mrs. Lasch asked the Senator whether he had heard anything after retiring for the night, whether he had heard any screams and whether he had heard any noises in the house. To all three, he replied, "No, I did not."

Mr. Smith's chief lawyer, Roy E. Black, seized on the issue in his cross-examination. He produced a diagram showing the position of the Senator's bedroom in the house, and how it opened onto the front lawn. He asked the Senator whether the window was open -- he said it was -- and whether he had used a fan that might have drowned out any noise. "There's one available, but I don't use it," he said.